Maybe im not explaining myself correctly.
a photon of a particular wavelength with the measurement of say a few millimeters is oscillating in some sort of way to produce a measurement of
wavelength. Always unless I am totally off here is a measurement of a peak and a low on a graph. A light wave in a particular wavelength you are
measuring the millimeters between peaks of a wave aren't you?.
I was to understand that a photon is a particle that moves in a never-ending zigzag while moving in its own forward direction.
If the photon doesn't oscillate then what is the measurement in millimeters measuring?.

Ok so. It doesnt have anything waving up and down, because that would imply some kind of possession, as a ship has a flag waving up and down, the
photon doesnt have anything waving up and down;

But, is the photon itself, waving up and down?

No.

I said: What is the difference between a single high energy photon and a single low energy photon?

You said: Wave length

I said: Is the photon itself, waving up and down?

You said: No

I say: If a photon does not wave up and down; what does the term wavelength have to do with a photon?

It has to do with the wavelength of the wave aspect of a photon. For the particle aspect it's probably the cross section, but I don't have to think
about that a lot in my field(s).

Don't visualize EM as "waving up and down", nothing much does that, certainly not EM. If you are thinking the photon particle is bobbing up and down
like a dolphin swimming, you absolutely are visualizing it incorrectly.

Maybe im not explaining myself correctly.
a photon of a particular wavelength with the measurement of say a few millimeters is oscillating in some sort of way to produce a measurement of
wavelength.

Correct!

Always unless I am totally off here is a measurement of a peak and a low on a graph. A light wave in a particular wavelength you are measuring the
millimeters between peaks of a wave aren't you?.

Yes!

I was to understand that a photon is a particle that moves in a never-ending zigzag while moving in its own forward direction.
If the photon doesn't oscillate then what is the measurement in millimeters measuring?.

No. It doesn't zigzag. Nothing's moving up and down.

What you measure depends on what you're looking at. If you are working with a single photon, it gets trickier to explain. With many photons, you are
looking at the amplitude of the light, but that's a group phenomenon. A single photon hasn't really got what you could describe as brightness. You
have to look at individual field components with one photon.

That stupid sinewave pattern thing that a lot of people use to "illustrate light waves" is very confusing in that a lot of people interpret it as the
photon bobbling up and down. It's a graphic illustration of light amplitude varying, not a literal depiction of a photon.

Ok so. It doesnt have anything waving up and down, because that would imply some kind of possession, as a ship has a flag waving up and down, the
photon doesnt have anything waving up and down;

But, is the photon itself, waving up and down?

No.

I said: What is the difference between a single high energy photon and a single low energy photon?

You said: Wave length

I said: Is the photon itself, waving up and down?

You said: No

I say: If a photon does not wave up and down; what does the term wavelength have to do with a photon?

Sound can be said to have wavelengths, too. However, nothing is "waving" up and down when sound "waves" propagate through air. Sound is created by
concentric shells of high and low pressure emanating from the sound source. Granted, they can be plotted on a graph as line that looks like an
ocean wave (a line connecting the points of higher and lower pressure over a timescale), but the air isn't bobbing up and down like the surface of an
ocean wave.

Obviously light is vastly different than sound, and sound waves are not the same as EM waves, but the above analogy is meaningful in that just because
the term "wavelength" is used does not mean that something is bouncing up and down like an ocean wave.

edit on 1/6/2016 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

That's the part that's tough to explain to you in a way that's going to be easy to visualize without being even more confusing.

If you understood vector projections, it would be easier.

Either a single photon can exist or it cannot.

If it can, it must exist 'some way'. (unless a single photon can exist multiple different ways).

It must be either closer to being like a marble (particle)

Or closer to being like a robotic internally powered snake that cannot stop wiggling (wave)

Or you can say it is definitely both, in the sense that the snake can curl up into a ball and move forward.

Either all photons intrinsically, unavoidably, inherently, exactly are exactly the same. (as electrons are thought to be)

Or they are able to not be. (as types of snakes are thought to be)

If all photons are exactly the same, and they cannot travel faster or slower, and nothing about the photon bodies itself is a wave; then the only ever
variable that has to do with photons, is the quantity they are spatially and temporally related to one another in. (6 snakes each 3 inches apart. 17
snakes each 12 inches apart)
(6 marbles each 3 inches apart. 17 marbles each 12 inches apart)

originally posted by: ImaFungi
If all photons are exactly the same, and they cannot travel faster or slower, and nothing about the photon bodies itself is a wave; then the only ever
variable that has to do with photons, is the quantity they are spatially and temporally related to one another in. (6 snakes each 3 inches apart. 17
snakes each 12 inches apart)
(6 marbles each 3 inches apart. 17 marbles each 12 inches apart)

That's what you get by trying to visualize it as a snake, or a sine wave flying through the air, physically.

eta: I think you're imagining a rope tied to a fence post that you're shaking up and down, and you can see the motion going down the rope. That's not
it. Crumple that image up and toss it in your mental wastebasket.

You cant explain it because its too fast. You can only calculate a probability of its possible positions right?

I can't write in words how it's inside my head. Especially without drawing you a picture.

And it takes math to explain it properly, which is the other way.

Photons have both wave and particle aspects. You can't say where the particle is located inside the wave except as a statement of probability, and
then you find out when the wave collapses.

As an engineer, I only think about the wave (generally) and then generally in groups of photons. That said, the drawing of an amplitude graph as if
it's flying through the air is very misleading and gives people bad internal images of a photon bouncing up and down like a ball. That's NOT what's
going on.

What you've got is a time-varying E field that's creating a time-varying H field at right angles, ad infinitum. How to depict that clearly in a
drawing is tough. I started to explain it in terms of Tinkerbell tumbling and rotating at the same time but couldn't come up with a clear enough
description of what I wanted to express.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
If all photons are exactly the same, and they cannot travel faster or slower, and nothing about the photon bodies itself is a wave; then the only ever
variable that has to do with photons, is the quantity they are spatially and temporally related to one another in. (6 snakes each 3 inches apart. 17
snakes each 12 inches apart)
(6 marbles each 3 inches apart. 17 marbles each 12 inches apart)

That's what you get by trying to visualize it as a snake, or a sine wave flying through the air, physically.

eta: I think you're imagining a rope tied to a fence post that you're shaking up and down, and you can see the motion going down the rope. That's not
it. Crumple that image up and toss it in your mental wastebasket.

Is a single photon more like a marble ball or a wiggling snake?

I dont care about your engineer imagination or uses, I am asking about reality and truth only, do you know about the realistic nature of a photon or
not?

Something like a marble ball exists in reality. Something like a wiggling snake exists in reality. Something like a photon exists in reality. Which
is a photon in reality most similar to? If your math isnt able to answer this question then you do not understand the photon.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
If all photons are exactly the same, and they cannot travel faster or slower, and nothing about the photon bodies itself is a wave; then the only ever
variable that has to do with photons, is the quantity they are spatially and temporally related to one another in. (6 snakes each 3 inches apart. 17
snakes each 12 inches apart)
(6 marbles each 3 inches apart. 17 marbles each 12 inches apart)

That's what you get by trying to visualize it as a snake, or a sine wave flying through the air, physically.

eta: I think you're imagining a rope tied to a fence post that you're shaking up and down, and you can see the motion going down the rope. That's not
it. Crumple that image up and toss it in your mental wastebasket.

Photon is one of the simplest things that exists in reality, one of the most fundamental things, it should be much easier to visualize how a single
photon exists, than visualize every component of a particle accelerator or even a computer.

The only reason you cannot visualize a photon, is because you have no clue how it exists.

THE ONLY REASON YOU CANNOT VISUALIZE A PHOTON, IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO CLUE HOW IT EXISTS.

Let me know if you need that repeated.

(though I should say, you do have a clue... all you have are clues... you do not have the solution, you have not used the clues to arrive at an
understanding of the culprit)

ImaFungi, I thought you weren't going to waste your time with such uninformed buffoons but instead were going to leave the thread to approach the
brightest physicist minds, whereupon you would be welcomed with open arms (and make great leaps forwards in physics with your keen insights, no
less)?

Or should this thread be renamed "Watch ImaFungi insult and berate members who have been kind enough to explain many concepts to him in about a
thousand different ways over the last couple of hundred of pages"?

You're trying to say the best way to visualize it as is as a sort of a light cloud of possible positions at any given time at any given point along
its trajectory?

Yeah, back up a page or two and look at my tinkerbell's butt in a fog bank analogy. I like the way that looks in my head, it's not far off if you want
a visual.

What's harder to do is say 'what's the nature of the em wave of one photon', because then you have to equip tinker with a bar magnet and an electric
dipole, and she has to spin them at right angles to each other.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
Is a single photon more like a marble ball or a wiggling snake?

I dont care about your engineer imagination or uses, I am asking about reality and truth only, do you know about the realistic nature of a photon or
not?

The real issue here is, you can't do a good job describing it with a visual, which is inherently wrong for a photon, or an english text description,
which also is wrong. And you won't do math, so there you go.

originally posted by: ImaFungi
Photon is one of the simplest things that exists in reality, one of the most fundamental things, it should be much easier to visualize how a single
photon exists, than visualize every component of a particle accelerator or even a computer.

The only reason you cannot visualize a photon, is because you have no clue how it exists.

THE ONLY REASON YOU CANNOT VISUALIZE A PHOTON, IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO CLUE HOW IT EXISTS.

Let me know if you need that repeated.

(though I should say, you do have a clue... all you have are clues... you do not have the solution, you have not used the clues to arrive at an
understanding of the culprit)

If you think any wave phenomenon is like a wiggling snake, you are operating on the level of a 5 year old. Same with the wooden ball.

That's pretty much how I see it in my head toO.
But back to my original question since we are measuring millimeters between wavelengths does a single photon havr a wavelength?.
I'm pretty sure it does.
and that single photons wavelength is a measure of what?
what about a single photon is oscillating exactly that you can make a measurement of it?
if its the photon then there is an inherent winding curvature to its path. if there is an inherent curvature in its locomotive process.
. now what was said earlier is that everything shrinks down the higher the frequency gets.
My question is is why at higher frequencies does that Tinkerbell ball does not get exponentially larger with higher energy levels?

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